Howling V: The Rebirth

Howling V is my favorite so far out of all the Howling movies. However, that doesn't mean this is a good film. The acting is pretty bad and the effects are absolutely horrid, but the plot is decent enough to make it tolerable. This one, the original Howling, and Howling IV are the only ones worth watching out of the first 5 flicks. The Howling series is really really bad. Only true horror fanatics would be interested in them at all. The only worse horror series i have encountered is the Children of the Corn series. Howling V is pretty predictible and the characters aren't killed off fast enough, so it moves kind of slowly. The music played after each death is annoying too. Recommended for Horror/Werewolf fans. Rating 4 of 10.

Basically this is the werewolf version of Ten Little Indians. A group of people end up stranded at a castle during a snowstorm and while they wait for it to end someone or something begins to pick them off one by one. With the howling and teeth marks on the bodies it points to one of them not being what they seem. This is actually a fairly descent Howling movie but it does have a small budget. I will give credit in the fact that they did well with what they had. The ending is also somewhat clever if you are not paying close attention throughout the movie. Overall not bad for what it is and is better than some of the other sequels.

With this one, I've finally watched all the HOWLING sequels. I can see why people actually like this 5th installment, as it does try to do something else with the werewolf concept. It plays out like a whodunit-slasher, set on one imaginative location (a Hungarian castle setting). Yet still, when you have to judge it on its own terms and nature, it falls short at the end of the ride. There's too little of the mystery-plot to enjoy (not enough red herrings, no twists worth mentioning and the killer/werewolf could just be anybody really - it's no fun to think along with the plot as there is not much to think about and no real puzzles to be solved). All the actual kills sadly happen off-screen (only ripped throats are shown after the events). We don't get to see much of the werewolf (only some brief glimpses during the attacks) and the film does not feature a transformation-scene (which I was so hoping for to happen during the conclusion). It's even lacking a decent climax of sorts.

The acting is strictly so-so, provided by a cast compiled out of unfamiliar names (at least to me they were). The small bits of humor injected into some of the dialogues, didn't really pay off. Fortunately they weren't too distracting. As far as cinematography goes, I only found the special effect shots, of the exterior of the castle during a snow storm, to be enjoyable. The interior sets of the castle chambers, dungeons and corridors looked a little cheap. But that can be forgiven, due to the movie's low budget.

It's an amusing watch and certainly not the worst or most idiotic HOWLING sequel, yes, but nothing more. HOWLING V might have drawn a lot of influences from that other 'guess the werewolf'-film THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974, starring Peter Cushing). Slightly more ridiculous but also a lot more fun, that film's at least worth checking out. I'm not too sure about HOWLING V, though. I probably should be flunking this film, but I'll be forgiving in my final rating. If only for the fact that HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH is infinitely better than the series final installment, (Part 7) NEW MOON RISING. Part 7 tries to tie up loose ends between part 4 (THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE) and part 5 (THE REBIRTH), but writer/director/producer/actor Clive Turner turned it into an insufferable mess of a movie.

Howling V: The Rebirth was better than I expected it to be, but still not a very good film. I don't know about you, but when I watch a werewolf movie I hope to actually SEE the werewolf from time to time. You DON'T SEE THE WEREWOLF in this movie. There are parts of it shown for a couple seconds here and there, but you never see the whole thing. This movie tries to be a mystery, wanting you to figure out who the wolf is. It isn't too hard to figure out, and the answer is confusing. If you want to watch a good werewolf movie, try the first Howling (stay away from parts 3 and 7 AT ALL COSTS) or Silver Bullet.

The general consensus with this movie seems to be not that great but better than the first three sequels and I'm happy to go along with that. It is probably, and this says a lot about the quality of the series, the best of the sequels. Only the first was much good and it wasn't a masterpiece. Oh, for some more decent werewolf movies.

This installment is basically a variation on the Ten Little Indians (Or N*ggers to use the somewhat un-PC word that was the original title of the Agatha Christie novel) with the killer amongst the group being a secret werewolf. A group of varied characters arrive at the opening of castle (Kind of like the opening of a supermarket but classier I guess) near Budapest and are snowed in by a blizzard. How these exact people, a seemingly disparate group, end up in the castle for its opening is actually a plot point, and a rather flimsy one at that, which comes into play later in the movie.

The characters are you standard varied bunch- airheaded would be starlet, playboy tennis pro, down to earth Aussie, snooty rich dude and so on. Had this been a teen oriented movie you know it would be the jock, the bitch, the nerd etc. The acting isn't the greatest but it isn't the worst, most of the actors at least being able to put some personality into there characters, even if they don't exactly deliver their lines very well and when the scripts lets them down. For the most part nobody is annoyingly bad and fortunately the worst actors seem to be killed of earlier on, such as the Australian professor, or are given less to do. I don't know if this intentional but it works in the movies favour.

Naturally as the characters are killed off it becomes a whodunit. This aspect isn't too badly handled and it isn't too badly handled unless you apply some simple logic to work out who the killer must be at one point halfway through the movie. Basically ala the movie Clue, the characters split up into four pairs (There was one group of three IRC) to go searching for some of the other missing characters in the labyrinth beneath the castle. Two of the pairs get split up at around the same time and one of those four ends up dead. Surely it would be logical for the others to deduce that it must be of these three who was the killer when they decide it is indeed one of their own number which is doing the killing rather than an outside party, as everyone else has an alibi so to speak. The other two people should at least be able to work out it is one of the other two who was on their own at the time. However nobody on screen seems to put that much thought into despite being supposedly intelligent people. To add insult to injury the victim at this point actually is killed by the person he was paired up with but nobody actually makes the obvious connection (The point was made in a humorous fashion in the similar section of Clue that if any one of them dies whilst searching the house they'll know they will at least know the other half of the pair is the killer but that was a much more intelligent movie with a stronger plot despite having three possible endings and being a farcical comedy). For the viewer at home it is made even easier to work out who is guilty since we are shown one of the three possibly suspects shooting at the werewolf after the kill, proving their innocence. Of the remaining two one of them is set up so heavily to look guilty that it is obvious that the other must be the culprit unless the makers were actually being sneaky. That said, it isn't blatantly telegraphed who the killer is earlier on in any other way as it so often is these kind of stories.

The plot beyond the whodunit aspect, specifically as to why particular people are in the castle makes very little sense. Without going into detail it involves an elaborate plan to get these particular people into the castle so the werewolf can be trapped and killed, except those behind this elaborate plan put absolutely no thought into killing the werewolf once this improbable scheme is pulled off and everybody is massacred. The makers would have been better off leaving out this whole aspect of the plot and just making a straightforward trapped in a closed off location with a nasty flick.

The dumbness of the plot aside Howling V is not that bad a watch if you like cheesy horror flicks. The castle setting is cheap and kind of fake looking but strangely enough it works and the movie has a nice enclosed atmosphere to it. It is well paced and does a lot of things right despite its shortcomings- for example characters are not killed off in exactly the order you would expect them to be, when normally in these kind of movies you can work it out exactly. Gorehounds and monster fans might disappointed by the fact there is very little gore, other than some after the fact claw marks and a later in the picture decapitation and that we only really get glimpses of the werewolf and it don't look that impressive from what we see of it so that is probably a good thing. To me the single most endearing aspect of the movie is what it does instead of showing the gory deaths. Every time, with one exception, someone is killed by the werewolf the movie cuts away from the killing and there is short burst of bombastic Omenesque music. I don't know why, but I loved it. The one time it didn't happen I felt cheated.